The first time I heard about this CD was a few weeks ago, when
one of the Berlin Oberdadasturmfuehrers of the Luther Blissett
Project wrote:

Good news: 'Human Wreckords' just released "the world's
first triple CD on one CD". The left stereo track contains
an album of the Berlin singer Ladybird [hypnotic-minimalistic
cover versions of smash hits by Army of Lovers, Kraftwerk and
others - I heard her singing at the last Super!Bierfront release
party and enjoyed it as solid disco entertainment] while the right
stereo track has music by the Japanese 'industrial noise' guy
Merzbow. With the help of the stereo balance control, you can
either listen to one of the two records or to both simultaneously.
The cover credits "Luther Blissett" for the concept
of the CD.

So I contacted the 'Human Wreckords' supremo, who also runs
the abovementioned sleazy punxploitation hatezine in Berlin. He
replied that Luther's description wasalmost right, it's just the
other way around!

Then he sent me a copy of "Balance", which I've just
received and... If that don't fuck all! Powerful stuff! I quote
from the enclosed press release:

HUMAN WRECKORDS is proud to present their now second german-japanese
collaboration after their renowned Noise-compilation "Wohlstand"
(HW 012, 1995).

Who would have thought that the grandmaster of purenoise, the
creator of one of the most savagely brutal and intense sounds
mankind has ever heard, would one day participate in a "pop"-production.
On this special release Masami Akita aka MERZBOW and the Berlin
Karaoke-group LADYBIRD fusion pure noise and disco with unmerciful
consequence. Dissonance and harmony amalgamate to something new
and true: sometimes awful, sometimes beautiful, but never boring.
The listener takes part in a somewhat twisted experience, and
on this truly interactive CD he can, through the balance switch
of his stereo, choose between a more noisier or more melodious
mix, or even just listen to one of the two alone.

The future has begun!

HUMAN WRECKORDS is happy to be a part of it.

Well, uh, HW underestimate their own product, which is NEVER
awful. I find it really beautiful: don't get the impression "Balance"
is some kind of unendurable mental masturbation. There's all the
sexual friction and emotional electricity of classic rock'n'roll
in here too, it just comes at you from sideways angles. On the
left you can hear Merzbow's "Floating Eloy", a suite
presumably named after Eloy Pruystinck, the Anabaptist/Free Spirit
agitator who was condemned to the stake in Antwerp in 1544. "Floating
Eloy" is a 38.38 minutes long clatter-creaking-scraping-pelting-frizzling
symphony which inflamed my ears. On the right there's Ladybird
aka Tanja Kopecky with her backing "band" and choir,
and the spirit of the supernasty early Eighties lives again: the
hijack and CassandraCrossing-like odissey of the Transeurope Express
+ a wallpaper of moronic easy-listened electro-pop + the rotting
corpse of Neue Deutsche Welle eaten by bugs and worms + terrifying
reminiscences of crappy spaghetti disco + a bleak, suave female
voice. The vanishing point at which the two hemispheres of your
brain can't help fighting each other. Never mind Deleuze &
Guattari, this is the real promenade of the schizo, and the schizo
has a walkman, and the headphones are fucking his brain over.
Buy it!